


Slayer of Blankets and Conqueror of Naps

by coloredlights



Category: Enchanted Forest Chronicles - Patricia Wrede
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-17
Updated: 2011-03-17
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:26:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredlights/pseuds/coloredlights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cat whose earliest memories are of quests, magical enemies, and a war between dragons and wizards acquires a very unique view on life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slayer of Blankets and Conqueror of Naps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSecondBatgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSecondBatgirl/gifts).



The soft ground was moving. Intermittently, and with no discernable pattern.

There was nothing to do but watch. Nightwitch was good at patterns, and she was even better at things that move. She could solve this mystery.

She crouched at the corner of the soft place, where the humans took their naps. (She still didn’t understand how humans got through life on so little sleep. Didn’t they know it was unhealthy?)

A lump twitched dramatically, and Nightwitch snapped her focus forward again. She’d learned long ago that there was no use in trying to find reason in the humans’ actions – they simply didn’t behave like civilized creatures should. It was why she’d been assigned to these two, after all.

It was much more productive to study this movement. After all, it might be something Nightwitch needed to attack, or outsmart, or simply bat around for a while until it conceded defeat.

Now the motion was coming from several different places at the same time. Nightwitch’s eyes widened. This was a much more complicated enemy than she had previously believed. She couldn’t attack all of its locations at once – this would require strategy.

Her eyes flicked back and forth, back and forth, across the rippling surface. When the lump nearest to her shook violently, she reached out a paw and tapped it, testing for any physical or magical backlash. Nothing happened, except for a slight change in background noise. This was tolerable. Nightwitch’s confidence grew.

Several of the lumps were moving consistently by this time. Assuming that those must be the most important areas, Nightwitch prepared for her initial attack. She shifted muscles until she was crouched and ready to spring, instead of curled in a content ball. To an observer, the positions differed only minutely.

The motions were speeding up. Nightwitch knew she was running out of time.

All her senses zeroed in on the perfect zone of attack – close enough for a controlled leap but far enough that peripheral parts of the enemy wouldn’t sense her motion, and one of the most active sections of the ground.

In an instant, she sprang, extended claws, and landed –

And the next instant, she was on the floor, barely standing upright after a thoroughly undignified catapult through the air.

“ _NIGHTWITCH_ ,” came the voices of both humans at once, in the tone she knew was often accompanied by a spray of water or a magical fizzle. This was not at all the result she had anticipated.

Indignantly, she slinked under the soft nap-place, into the cavern. Clearly the humans were displeased with her failure. She would take time to reevaluate and come up with a new strategy, and next time, Nightwitch knew, she would conquer this mysterious enemy.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Photo of my grandfather's cat, Jake, taken by me. He doesn't have a white paw, but he's a pretty mischievous guy and he makes a good model.
> 
> Also, if you've never been woken up (or otherwise disrupted from bedroom activities) by cat claws to the feet, you haven't really lived.


End file.
